The Social Psychology of Childhood Disability

David Thomas

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781138853294
• eBook ISBN: 9781317526179
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

'Some years ago I read the phrase "the spontaneous revulsion to the deformed". The phrase seemed to be both potent and provocative: Was there a spontaneous revulsion to disabilities in children or did such conditions evoke a more compassionate response?'

Originally published in 1978, the problems of the disabled were no longer confined to the medical and educational professionals, but had become the concern of the community as a whole. Using terminology very much of the time, the author shows how attitudes towards different kinds of disability had developed at the time; they varied both regionally and by social class, sometimes calling into question the accepted 'facts' about the distribution of a particular condition. Most importantly, the author examines these attitudes together with many other social and psychological factors in relation to their impact on the social behaviour and developing self-image of the disabled child. It becomes clear that the dangers of categorization and the difficulties in overcoming stigma have a profound influence on the education and socialization of disabled children.

This book will be of historical interest to students and teachers of psychology, education, social work and rehabilitation; and it will provide insight for parents and all those concerned with the care and development of the disabled child about how far we have come.

1 Social psychology and handicap

What is social psychology?

A glance at the contents list in a basic reference work — for example, Lindzey and Aronson's The Handbook of Social Psychology — gives a general idea of the concerns of the social psychologist. We see that the subject is old enough to have an historical framework (most textbooks nod deferentially towards Aristotle), several major theoretical positions, a richness of research methods and a variety of applied fields. Within these broad divisions we find such topics as theories of human behaviour, roles and attitude changes, person perception (the manner in which we appraise and judge others), group leadership, socialization, social structure and so on. Almost as varied as the topics are the methods of investigation, which include observation, participant observation, interviews, attitude measurement, simulation, and what some would regard as the main technique, experiment. These and other methods are applied to specific areas —industrial social psychology, cross-cultural research, the social psychology of education, religion, politics, economics, international affairs, mental health, ethnic relationships and the media.

A natural question is: can these various concerns have anything in common? Or is social psychology, as some have suggested, just an ill-defined territory which those calling themselves social psychologists have claimed as their preserve? It is a broad and diverse field with imprecise boundaries and an uneasy relationship with the parent disciplines of sociology and psychology. Nevertheless, there is a valid if somewhat tenuous unity — a concern for human behaviour in a social context. 'It [social psychology] deals with man as a social animal and investigates how he thinks, feels and behaves in social situations' (Freedman, Carlsmith and Sears, 1970, p.vii). A recent historical survey of social psychology provided several definitions (Sahakian, 1974):

the study of individual behaviour as a function of social stimuli; the scientific study of the experiences and behaviour of individuals in relation to social-stimuli situations; the study of the thoughts, feelings and behaviour of individuals and how they are influenced by others; the perceptions of others and groups of others; the study of attitudes and attitude change.

Though there are differences in emphasis, these definitions illustrate that social psychology is an attempt to study objectively and systematically man's responses to and effects upon his social environment. This includes observable public behaviour as well as private opinions, beliefs and attitudes; responses and reactions in encounters with other individuals; behaviour in small groups or large organizations or in crowds. Given such a broad interest, social psychology cannot be accused of being modest in its territorial claims, but perhaps it is this very breadth and the central concern for human beings reacting to and influencing others that make the subject an absorbing one. It might be helpful here to illustrate, just briefly, some of the topics which engage social psychologists, particularly in the area of personal interaction.

• (1) We form impressions of other people when we meet them. We do this quite quickly and often on the basis of limited information. Which 'bits' of information do we use and which are the most important? Is it age or sex, race or nationality, appearance, voice, manner? A related question is whether we are consistent in our appraisal of others or, as seems likely, are we influenced by our moods? And, further, to what extent does our impression of other persons depend on our relationship to them? Will our judgement be affected if we learn that someone has the power to make life more pleasant or unpleasant for us? In one experiment two groups of young men were shown the same set of photographs of serving officers. One group was about to be conscripted, the other was not. The first group rated the officers as more threatening and as of greater military ability than did the second group.
• (2) If we know or believe that a person has a given attribute, are we likely to believe that he has certain others as well? Is someone who is 'highly intelligent' seen as possessing other qualities, such as imagination, consideration or reliability? In one study, people who were believed to be 'inconsiderate' were also judged irritable, boastful, cold and hypercritical — without any supporting evidence for these traits.
• (3) A deceptively simple question is: whom do we like? Do we like those who are similar to us — and what does 'similar' mean? Does it refer to age, sex, social class, education, occupation, or values and attitudes? Many studies have shown that proximity is enough to initiate a liking for someone, but for sustained friendship similar values and attitudes may be necessary. One study investigated the pattern of friendship among dwellers in an apartment block. They were asked about other residents in the block whom they saw socially, and the replies showed that most people formed friendships with those living nearest to them.
• (4) Perhaps an important element in liking or disliking other persons is what they say about us. In one experiment subjects heard a confederate of the investigator making either positive or negative statements about them. Generally the subjects reciprocated the confederate's evaluation. A variant was to have the confederate initially make negative statements and then gradually make more and more positive ones. Here subjects reported greater liking for the confederate than when he made only positive statements. The original negative comments had aroused anxiety, doubts and irritation, and the subsequent positive remarks were not only rewarding in themselves, but were enhanced because they reduced the feelings aroused by the negative ones.
• (5) One characteristic of groups of people is that they will sometimes act collectively in ways in which they would not act individually. Within a group, especially a large group such as a crowd, we give up part of our individuality. On our own we are personally responsible, but as members of a group we share responsibility for our actions. For example, in an experiment a group of girls were greeted by name, wore name tags and were easily identifiable as individuals. Later the girls wore concealing lab coats and hoods and were not identified by name. In both cases the girl were invited to give 'electric shocks' to a girl not in the group, and they gave almost twice as many shocks when they were part of the anonymous crowd.

These illustrations point up some of the questions that psychology asks about everyday interpersonal behaviour — impression formation, liking, attitudes, social learning, group behaviour, and the effects of stress and anxiety.

Social psychology and the handicapped

Obviously many of the issues touched upon above are directly relevant to the handicapped person's role, status and behaviour in society. Topics such as interpersonal behaviour, attitudes, impression formation, liking, etc., are ones which will concern us, and especially those facets of behaviour which influence child development.

A disability is the lack or loss of a function or a capacity. In a sense this is an objective limitation imposed by disease or accident (of life or birth). The term 'handicap' is sometimes synonymous with disability but has certain psychological overtones. Whether a disability becomes a handicap depends on its nature and severity, its prognosis and amenability to treatment, the extent to which it interferes with everyday life, and the attitudes of other people to it. The extent to which a disability is a handicap also depends on the personal meaning the loss of function has for an individual. Those with experience of the disabled will readily call to mind persons who have been able to reduce the handicapping effect of their disability to a minimum, whilst others, similarly affected, have been submerged by it. While the distinction between disability and handicap is worthy of note, in practice the terms have become interchangeable and are used in this way here.

We have seen that social psychology is concerned with man as a social animal, how he thinks, feels and behaves in social situations. We can, therefore, ask whether behaviour, feelings and thoughts are changed if one is disabled or handicapped, or if one is interacting with a person so afflicted. A whole host of questions arise. What is the general attitude to disability? Are attitudes changing — if so, why, and how fast or slowly and in what direction? Are there different attitudes towards disabled children and disabled adults? Are there distinctive attitudes to particular kinds of disability, for instance to congenital as against acquired afflictions? How do the disabled view the rest of us and our attitudes? What is the social status of the disabled — do they have equal opportunities in education and employment? What is the impact of a handicapped child on the family? We shall explore some of these issues as they affect children and those who live and work with them.

In Britain there are between one-and-a-half and three million adults who are disabled in some way. To add those who are under 16 years of age would inflate the total figure to somewhere near 6 per cent of the population (Townsend, 1973). This includes those maimed in war, victims of industrial and traffic accidents, and those affected by illness or disease. The disabled population is wide in age range, and in the severity and causes of disability. From a social psychological perspective the precise medical category of disability is not particularly relevant — except if it carries a social stigma. Severity of disability is a more useful approach since this indicate the likely degree to which the disabled person will be able to cope with the problems of everyday living; this approach pervades the literature on rehabilitation. But we want to consider disabled men and women in their social context, and so we may tentatively divide this heterogeneous group into five psycho-social categories of disability-handicap.

• (1) This category is based on the degree to which the disability prevades the perceptual field. It is highly visible and provides early information which acts as an anticipatory signal to others (the blind person's white cane, the paraplegic's wheelchair). These signals convey clues about the social identity of the disabled person.
• (2) In this category the dominant theme is difficulty in effective interpersonal communication. Distant cues may be absent or minimal but problems of reception or expression occur early in any social encounter; deafness and speech impediments are typical examples.
• (3) Here the person appears normal both from a distance and during social encounters. His disability is episodic or phasic as with asthma, epilepsy, haemophilia and maladjustment.
• (4) This category relates to the connotation carried by the label: the disability is associated with social stigma, as in severe retardation and educational subnormality.
• (5) A combination of the above — for example Down's Syndrome (mongolism) with its physical aspect and its social stigma (1 and 4).

These categories can be used as discrete entities but also as dimensions, so that category (1), visible handicaps, may be considered as a range or continuum from highly visible to almost undetectable, and (2) as a range of communication defects from slight to severe; (3) is more useful as an inclusive group but (4) can be used discriminatively according to the degree of stigma attached. If recent research into childhood handicaps is a guide, then most of disabled persons cannot be adequately embraced by just one of these categories.

The categories are derived from observations of disabled persons' reception in our society and of our attitudes towards them. We know from the work of Cook (1971) and Argyle (1975) that the process of forming impressions of others is a complicated affair involving static elements — the face in repose, physique, voice, clothes, hairstyle, cosmetics, etc. — and dynamic aspects such as orientation, distance, posture, gesture, body movement, facial expression, gaze direction, tone of voice, rate and fluency of speech. Physique and appearance are important criteria in impressionistic social classification. The unusually tall woman, the obese child, the finely proportioned dancer or athlete call attention to themselves. Adams and Cohen (1974) have shown that teachers are influenced by their pupils' appearance, though only for a short while, after which other characteristics (learning and behaviour) become more significant. Nevertheless, physique and appearance are not unimportant in the forming of initial impressions. We can effect certain modifications to the flow of personal information given by our appearance but these are clearly limited. Moreover we learn, and so must the visibly handicapped, the specific cultural values (both positive and negative) attached to variations in physique and appearance. These values are of course, not simply applied to others, they are applied by the self to the self. Their acquisition is a long process begun in childhood, continued through a host of social encounters and powerfully reinforced by the media's projection of what is beautiful and desirable — and what is not. It is more than the ranking of self and others in some pecking order of good looks. A positively or a negatively valued physique and appearance can mean the attribution of other personal qualities and characteristics which follow the value direction of the physical variation. The exterior man reflects the inner one; folk-sayings, Latin tags, poetry and novels are rich with examples of perceived links between appearance and personality.

How we come to attach visual, social and moral meanings to physical variations is a process not clearly understood, but chance meetings with the disabled vividly illustrate for each of us the lesson we unconsciously learned in childhood. In encounters with the visibly disabled, the disability or disfigurement seems to dominate the perceptual field of both participants, so that what is central is the disability and not the disabled person. Physical variations signalled from afar, do of course, allow the non-handicapped to avoid a potential encounter or to prepare for it. The physical cues given by someone who violates physical conventions may make another person uncertain and awkward since a range of customary interpersonal skills — dynamic as well as static — will be seen to need modification or different emphasis. An additional hindrance to smooth interaction will be the experience of the one and the inexperience of the other. The normal person's limited contact with the handicapped people may make him uncertain and insecure in handling his side of an encounter, while the disabled person, from many previous experiences, may expect the encounter to be strained.

It has been suggested that in initial encounters the disabled person is never sure which aspect of him will be used — will the other concentrate on his disability (by asking indiscreet questions) or will he avoid it at all costs and never let it intrude even by so much as an incautious glance? Again there is more at work than mechanisms of interaction since also involved is the psychological meaning given to the disability by the other person.

Disability can mean different things to different people. In some it evokes a sympathetic response, in others a negative hostile reaction, and others again may wish simply to avoid the issue. Consequently, in terms of social psychology, initial encounters between the disabled and others do not start from a neutral point, and the disabled person has to deal with definitions of himself and his disability previously and independently conceived by others.

Where the disability is effectively non-visible to casual inspection but becomes apparent with any attempt at conversation, one participant would have been expecting a conventional encounter. It may be that unexpected communication difficulties have a greater impact than when anticipatory social defences are alerted. As the Royal National Institute for the Deaf advertise, 'It's a pity deaf people look so normal'. Mrs Abrahams, a university graduate with a hearing handicap, has written an account of some of her experiences in local politics ('reduced to the role of non-speaking server of coffee and biscuits'), with her children's friends, and visiting schools. 'I dread even going ... because it is always possible that some mother taken in by my normal appearance will try to open a conversation with me, will be answered by something unintelligible ... will be disconcerted and embarrassed, and I shall feel myself a blot on the landscape, a disgrace to the children' (Abrahams, 1973). Here the anticipatory mechanisms at work in the handicapped person encourage the avoidance of contact with others. For the non-handicapped the social and personal cost of meeting persons with communication difficulties makes for brief rather than sustained encounters. Once an encounter has begun there is no way of avoiding the centrality of the handicap, since an encounter is a process of communication and the handicap works against it. Communication, especially speech, is one of the hallmarks of membership of the human club, and those who cannot receive or express the spoken word are sometimes denied full rights within it.

Our third category is where there are no overt signs of handicap nor are there problems of communication; persons in this category 'pass' as conventional but their social orthodoxy is threatened by the episodic nature of their handicap. Persons with epilepsy or asthma are examples; when not having an asthmatic attack or an epileptic seizure, they can sustain a normal role. Although these conditions are very different from each other in origins and symptoms, psychologically they are similar since their manifestation is irregular and unpredictable. This means a background of psychological stress, and for persons so handicapped the constant theme of social experience is the threat of self-violation of normal identity — the possibility of discovery.

Some handicapping conditions impose on the sufferer a marked degree of negative attitudes. Severe mental retardation is an example of a condition associated with profound stigma. It may or may not be linked with visible signs, but is not infrequently connected with inappropriate or unusual social behaviour. Interaction between normal and retarded people is characteristically at an infantile level, but in general, encounters tend to be confined to those with a professional concern for the stigmatized person and his or her immediate family. The adult-child quality of relationships was noted by Kathleen Jones (1975, pp. 108-10) in her observation of the behaviour of nurses in a hospital for the mentally handicapped. Nurses, she writes,

... see themselves as parents and their patients as children. The model of family behaviour is a legitimate one in helping dependent people but there are consequential problems such as the spread of authority to all aspects of the patient's life; the application of punishment to patients that nurses would apply to their own children and expectations that patients should respond to care with ... affection, obedience and gratitude.

Our final category is that reserved for the most afflicted — those who combine visible signs of their infirmity with difficulties in communication and who are also sometimes stigmatized. Here we may presume that conventional social behaviour suffers the greatest constraints.

The above categories illustrate, in a primitive way, some of the psycho-social dimensions of the problem of the disabled person as a social being. Disability is not only a medical matter, it is an area of concern for the social psychologist. According to Meyerson (1955, p. 12) it is not an 'objective thing in a person but a social value judgement'. Perhaps it would be more correct to say that a disability may be evaluated objectively, in the sense that constraints on mobility, manipulatory skills, hearing, etc., can be quantified, but that the handicapping nature of the disability cannot be so accurately assessed. This will depend on the individual person's perception of his difficulties and whether the social climate either encourages or inhibits his striving to compensate for them. It is both a social value judgement and a personal one — a self-value judgement which is, of course, powerfully affected by the attitudes of, and interaction with others, but is not totally conditioned by them. Any loss of physical function is likely to be viewed negatively, and the negative values derive from three sources: the nature ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Original Title
• Original Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• 1 Social psychology and handicap
• 2 Handicapped children
• 3 Attitudes and the handicapped
• 4 Personality and self-image
• 5 The socialization of the handicapped child
• 6 The family and handicapped children
• 7 Schools and handicapped children
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index